


utter my love when it counts

by kekinkawaii



Category: Military Wives (2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27449353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kekinkawaii/pseuds/kekinkawaii
Summary: Some people say Kate is scary. Some people say she’s kind of mean. Cold. Distant, sometimes. And to that Lisa says, Fuck off.
Relationships: Kate Barkley/Lisa Lawson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	utter my love when it counts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ensorcel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ensorcel/gifts).



> [cracks knuckles] I have never seen this movie or read any fic for it but here i am
> 
> The title is from the song Shrike by Hozier.  
> If you are one of the (so I've heard) two people in this pairing, I sincerely hope you enjoy.

The day she’s supposed to move into her dorm, Lisa’s so stressed about her luggage and clothes and papers and registration forms and wallet and keys and how much the family dog, Arya, is going to miss her and how much she’s going to miss the dog, oh  _ lord  _ did she remember to pack her retainers? that she doesn’t realize, doesn’t even register the thought—not until she lugs her three bags full of objects that are supposed to keep her alive (alone!) for the next four years of her life all the way up four flights of stairs (because the elevator was absolutely  _ packed)  _ and into dorm room 21B—it’s only then that she remembers, oh. Right. She’s has a roommate.

Her roommate, who has already unpacked. Either that, or her luggage is arriving a day later or something otherwise ridiculous, because there is no opened, sprawling luggage at the foot of the far bed, nor strewn clothes all over the mattress. Instead, there is neat squares of blouses and shirts in the closet. Instead, she is sitting at the desk overlooking the window, a phone tucked between her cheek and her shoulder as she taps away at a laptop.

“Yes, I know.” Her voice is curt, a gravelly tone to it that Lisa recognizes as no-nonsense. She reminds her of a choir teacher she had in Sophomore year. “Yes, Father, I’ll be fine. I got it. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Love you too. Bye.” She presses the enter key with a particularly-strong jab of her index finger, and then reaches with the same hand to retrieve her phone and end the call. She hastily brushes a hand through her hair, pushing back a strand that had fallen out of her otherwise-impeccable ponytail.

Lisa licks her lips, surprisingly nervous. “Hello?”

The girl jolts a little before turning around, and Lisa blinks, startled at the intensity of the look suddenly levelled at her. “Who are you?” she says, rather bluntly.

Lisa doesn’t mind. She trudges on, offering a smile. “I’m Lisa,” she says. “Your roommate?”

“Oh,” she says, understanding dawning on her face. “I’m Kate,” she says. “I’ve already unpacked my stuff. Your clothes go on the right side of the closet. I can vacuum and clean, but I’m not a very good cook.”

“I can cook,” Lisa says, a little bewildered by the onslaught of words.

“Great,” Kate says, and from anyone else it would sound sarcastic, but Kate’s calm, dark eyes and firm jaw morph it into something genuine that drains the tension from Lisa’s shoulders. Lisa nods in acknowledgement, and Kate nods back—stiff, sure—before turning back to her laptop. 

“What are you working on?” Lisa blurts. It looks like a Word document, except the font is just  _ atrociously  _ small. 

“A proposal,” Kate says. “For my midterm paper.”

Flummoxed, Lisa says, “Class hasn’t even started.”

“I took summer lessons. Asked the prof for the syllabus ahead of time. I’m trying to graduate in three years.”

Lisa’s just about to ask,  _ Why,  _ the word halfway out of her mouth before she swallows it back down her throat. “Impressive,” she chirps instead. “I’ll just get settled, then.”

Kate only hums in response.

Lisa unpacks her bags to the quiet tapping of the keyboard. It’s rather therapeutic, really. As she draws out the elastic-tied bundle of rolled-up posters, lovingly collected over years and years, she glances at Kate’s wall, as blank as the Arctic snow, and feels—not embarrassment—a prodding in the back of her head that she squashes like a spider. She snaps the elastic while unwrapping it, and the sound echoes through the room.

As she’s smoothing the final poster over her side of the wall, she is suddenly aware of someone watching her. She doesn’t look back; lets her watch.

“I love that movie,” Kate says, softly.

Lisa’s still facing the wall, so Kate doesn’t see her smile.

Lisa quickly learns about Kate.

Some things are predicted: Kate wakes up at seven in the morning, despite whether she has classes or not. She never snoozes. She always sleeps on her left side. She brushes her teeth with an electric toothbrush while Lisa uses a manual. Others are surprising: Lisa stumbles home one night from a study-session-turned-bar-hop to see Kate with her headphones on, vacuuming the carpet. Her hips are swaying and she’s smiling, mouth open, quietly singing under her breath.

(It makes Lisa smile so wide her cheeks hurt. When Kate spots her, she blushes bright red and refuses to speak about it. The next day, Lisa sings so loudly in the shower that Kate stares, blatantly, when she comes out. Lisa just grins.)

College is—it just is. It isn’t like everything the movies said, and Lisa didn’t expect it to be. There aren’t crazy frat parties every night where people get piss drunk and go streaking through the cafeteria, but Lisa does join a Sorority for shits and giggles. It’s not as wild as the movies, again, but it’s nice. She makes a few friends. She does get drunk, and she does get hit on, but she never wakes up in a stranger’s bed, either. There isn’t a blue-eyed, raven-haired bad boy who gets paired up with her for Chemistry.

It’s not very different from high school, to be perfectly honest. Lisa doesn’t know if she should be disappointed or relieved.

Kate is—Lisa doesn’t know what Kate is. Kate studies so hard Lisa worries her eyeballs might fall off. She can glare in a way that makes your insides turn to shards of ice. Lisa’s never seen her at a party. Once, when Lisa’s studying with a friend she made in Econ, she lets it drop that Kate’s her roommate, and Charlie looks at her with wide eyes.

“What?” Lisa says.

“She’s  _ scary,”  _ Charlie says, completely serious.

Lisa bursts out laughing. “Are you kidding? No she isn’t.”

“She’s in my Psych class. This one time, a guy wouldn’t stop staring at her boobs and she punched him. Straight-up, full-out left hook.”

Lisa snorts. Yeah, that sounds like Kate. “He had it coming.”

Charlie shrugs. “Okay, yeah. He did.” He tilts his head. “Now that I think about it, I don’t think Kate’s dated anyone, either. Like, ever.”

Lisa glances at Charlie, something akin to protectiveness surging inside her. “She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to. It’s none of our business.”

“I know,” Charlie says. “But…” He shrugs, with a tone of finality this time. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s none of my business.”

He doesn’t bring up Kate again.

“Lisa,” Kate says. “What are you  _ doing?” _

Lisa glances up to where Kate is standing at the entrance of their kitchen, an empty mug in her hand.

“Um,” she says. “Making a mug cake.”

Kate scans the footprint-speckled clouds of flour on the floor, the splatter of milk across the counter, her eyebrows drawing higher with each second. “What’s a mug cake?”

“A cake in a mug,” Lisa says, kind of uselessly. “You microwave it instead of putting it in the oven. It’s a serving for two.”

Kate looks surprised at that. “You were going to make one for me?”

“I  _ wanted  _ to,” Lisa corrects, and stares down at the mugfull of gelatinous brown goop that had somehow exploded in the microwave. She holds it out, turns it at an angle so Kate can see it more clearly. “I mean, if you still want it…” 

“Absolutely not.”

Lisa grins. “Smart choice.” She places the mug down on the counter with a loud clatter. “Anyway, wanna clean all of this up with me?”

Kate surveys her surroundings again, something akin to defeat in her eyes. “Oh, Lisa,” she says.

“Be honest, it’s not like you had anything better to do on a Friday night other than spend all this quality time with me,” Lisa jokes.

Kate purses her lips, pretends to think. “Fine. But you’re on dishwasher duty for a week.”

“Deal.”

It takes nearly an hour. Kate says it’s because Lisa took so long googling the best way to remove cake batter from someone’s hair. Lisa says it’s because Kate is too uncoordinated to juggle raw eggs without breaking them. Kate says Lisa started it all and it’s all her fault. Lisa—well. Maybe Lisa agrees with Kate.

The clock is ticking, ticking, ticking away like a pipe bomb, and Lisa is three hundred words into this godawful, dreadful, fucking  _ awful  _ paper that she has no  _ fucking clue  _ why it’s fighting her so hard but she’s going to fucking  _ beat  _ it the fuck into submission and choke out the rest of the two thousand words if it takes her all. Fucking. Night. Which is looking more and more likely. Her teeth have been gritted for so long that her jaw had gone from aching to throbbing to downright numb.

What kind of Prof gives their class a two-thousand word paper due in two days’ notice, anyway? Is he a Satanist?

Lisa is  _ trying  _ to concentrate. She’s already had double the dosage of caffeine she usually allows herself, topped off with a bottle of Gatorade she bought at the convenience shop across the street. That was two hours ago. Two hours after that, the effects have steadily drained away like sand in a sieve and tiny black dots are swimming in Lisa’s vision, cluttering her view of the blinking cursor on the screen.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

“Fuck!” she says out loud, just to hear it. It feels good on her tongue, sharp like a stinger, so she says it again.

The third time, she’s interrupted by a hand on her shoulder.

She jerks around so quickly her neck twinges. “Fuck! Ow!” She glares at nothing in particular, vision vague, before she blinks and focuses. “Oh. Hi.”

Kate’s in her pyjamas—a periwinkle shirt a few sizes too large. No pants. Her hair is down, falling over her shoulders in a way that she rarely lets happen during the day. It’s slightly wavy, Lisa notes, because she just washed it today. She usually wears makeup during the day; nothing fancy, just eyebrows and concealer and a bit of lipstick if she has time. Without it, Lisa can see the hints of dark circles under her eyes. It makes her look softer. Lisa kind of likes it.

Then, Lisa realizes she was talking. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“Go to sleep,” Kate says.

Lisa sighs and gestures grandiosity at her laptop. She’s up to four hundred, now. “Would if I could. This fucking paper won’t come out right.”

“That’s because you’ve been working on it all night. Sleep, and then come back to it in the morning.”

“It’s  _ due  _ in the morning!” Lisa snaps.

“Well, then why did you leave it until now?” Kate sounds genuinely curious, and Lisa feels a tremor of anger, reckless, boil up.

“Well, I’m sorry I’m not perfect! Yeah, I procrastinated. Yeah, I’m a mess sometimes. So what, I’m paying the price for it now, so just let me finish this goddamn paper so I can go to fucking  _ sleep!” _

She grits out the last few words in a burst of forgotten energy before it all collapses out of her. She watches her hands rest on her lap. They’re trembling. Maybe it’s the caffeine withdrawal. She thinks about that—the cups of coffee piled up in the recycling bin—and tries to ignore the pulsing waves of embarrassment riding through her. Fuck, she’s tired.

She flinches when she feels an unprecedented touch on her cheek. Eyes wary, she looks over at Kate, who trails her hand down Lisa’s cheek so lightly it nearly tickles. After that, she reaches down and takes Lisa’s hand. Starts tugging.

“What are you doing?” Lisa mumbles, but she lets the grip lead her out of the seat.

“Come on,” Kate says. 

“I  _ am,”  _ Lisa says, a little petulantly. Wordless, Kate pulls on her hand all the way to the washroom. Once they’re there, Lisa realizes that their fingers have become intertwined somewhere along the way. Kate’s fingers are warm. When she lets go, Lisa clenches her hand into a fist.

Kate points at the sink. “Wash your face,” she orders.

Lisa sighs. “Kate, what are you doing.”

“Calming you down. Wash your face.”

Lisa washes her face.

“Good,” Kate says. “Now brush your teeth.”

“I just had coffee.”

“You had coffee two hours ago. Brush your teeth.”

Lisa brushes her teeth.

Kate takes her hand again, and they make their way back to the desk without a word, Kate walking with a purpose while Lisa trails along like a lost moth chasing a sputtering flame.

With a prompted touch on her shoulder, Lisa sits back down in the chair. Kate stands near her, inches away, leaning over in order to peer at the laptop screen.

“What’s this paper on?” Kate says, impatiently pushing back a lock of hair that fell in front of her face.

It takes Lisa a while to remember.

Kate nods after Lisa tells her. “And where are you at right now?”

This goes on. After two more questions, Kate gets sick of her hair constantly falling down and picks up one of Lisa’s scrunchies from the desk, swiftly tying her hair back in a looser ponytail than normal, before leaning over and going right back to business.

This close, Lisa can see all the colours in her eyes. This close, Lisa can smell her shampoo when she moves.

“Alright,” Kate finally says, how long after, Lisa doesn’t remember. “Do you have a better idea on what to write now?”

Lisa nods. “I. Yeah. I think so.”

“Good,” Kate says. She straightens, and reaches up to take out the scrunchie in her hair. She shakes it out gently. “Then keep writing.”

“Okay,” Lisa says, and watches Kate get back into bed. You should wear your hair down more often, she thinks. You look good in blue. I like that I’m the only one who gets to see you without makeup, and I don’t know why. Or maybe she does, but even skirting the frayed edges of that thought sends terror striking though her, so she keeps her head down and her mouth shut and keeps writing.

Lisa doesn’t find out that Kate has insomnia until they’ve been roommates for nearly over a month. And it’s an accident, too. Usually, Kate is the first one in bed, already turned on her left side and blankets pulled up like a cocoon, long before Lisa finishes her final episode of Netflix or completes the last question of her assignment.

It’s not until Lisa has some odd nightmare about being chased through a cornmaze by a flying laptop with a chainsaw and wakes up in a cold sweat, then, deciding a dream like that calls for a cup of chamomile tea or hot chocolate, pads out of the bedroom, that she sees Kate sitting on the couch outside and blurts out sleepily, “What are you doing still up?”

Kate looks startled, then guilty. “Nothing,” she says.

“Bullshit,” Lisa says shortly. “What’s up?”

Kate sighs. “I can’t sleep.”

Concerned, Lisa heads towards Kate. She sits down next to her, the couch creaking under their weight. “Why? Nightmares?” 

Shake of her head. “No. Just can’t sleep.” At Kate’s frown: “I have insomnia. It’s not severe, but sometimes it’s worse than usual with stress. Midterms and all.”

“Oh,” Kate says. “I didn’t know.”

“It helps if I get in bed earlier. That way, I can at least get some rest without worrying about it becoming too late.”

That… actually kind of makes sense. Lisa frowns nonetheless. She had a friend in high school with insomnia, once, and from what she’s heard from them, it sounded awful. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I’m fine,” Kate says. Not ‘no’. 

Lisa notices the deflection. “Tell me, Kate. Please?”

Kate gives Lisa an exasperated look, but it’s weak and the quavering exhaustion in her eyes offset it. “I’ve dealt with it my whole life already, Lisa. I’m fine, really.”

“Yes, you’re fine, but that doesn’t mean you’re  _ good,”  _ Lisa insists. “Is there anything that makes it better? Meds, or anything?”

“Melatonin works,” Kate says. “It’s expensive. And the drugstore is closed right now.”

“Anything else?”

Kate closes her eyes. “Podcasts. Classical music. But only a little.”

“And?”

“My parents used to read to me. Fiction books, usually. Sometimes the newspaper. Anything they had on hand. Sometimes my father would make up stories.” A smile plays on Kate’s face, then, a memory clear behind her eyelids. “The presence was… comforting.”

_ That’s  _ what Lisa was looking for. She smiles, soothed now by the urge to help, to alleviate this for Kate. “Did I ever tell you about the time I accidentally set my toaster on fire?”

Confused at the non sequitur, Kate’s eyes open. “No,” she says slowly.

“I was thirteen, I think,” Lisa says. “I was trying to make a pizza.”

Realization flashes on Kate’s face. “Lisa, that’s not what I—you don’t have to do this.”

“I want to,” Lisa says.

“It might not even help. You’re wasting your time.”

“I don’t care.”

“You have class tomorrow.”

“At two in the afternoon. Don’t worry about me, Kate. Just—relax, okay?” Lisa puts enough stress into her inflection that Kate turns to face her completely, listening with intent like she always does. “I don’t even care if you don’t fall asleep. In fact, I’m not even counting on it. Just let me sit here with you, and try to relax. Please?”

Kate studies Lisa’s expression, and Lisa focuses on nudging all of her honesty into her gaze.

“Okay,” Kate finally says. “But ten minutes only. And then you’re going back to sleep.”

“Sure,” Lisa agrees easily. “Anyway—I was making pizza. Or trying to. I remember we used to have pizza days, as a family, every Thursday, and I was the only one in the family who liked pineapple on pizza, and they never ordered it…”

Lisa loses track of her words. She lets herself ramble, drifting off on tangents like strings of spider silk before lazily tracing her way back. It’s relaxing her in its own way, too, and she can feel contentedness settle upon her like a purring cat.

Twenty minutes later, Lisa trails off from talking about her mother’s secret recipe for chicken noodle soup. She glances over at Kate. She’s laying on her arms on the side of the couch, and her chest is steadily rising up and down.

Lisa waits for a full minute. Kate doesn’t respond.

Lisa gets up, carefully as to not stir the couch, and walks over to the bedroom to grab the blankets. As she drapes them over Kate’s sleeping figure, she watches her curled up on the couch (she looks so small, all of a sudden; stoic, fierce, stubborn Kate) and feels an inextinguishable urge that grasps and tugs her all the way down until she kisses Kate’s forehead.

Kate murmurs something, but doesn’t wake.

The next day, Lisa is already up and flipping pancakes in the kitchen when she hears Kate call out her name.

“Morning, sunshine,” she sings. “Had a nice sleep?”

Okay, so maybe Lisa is a little smug.

Kate rubs the sleep out of her eyes as the trudges towards the kitchen, drawn by the smell of freshly-brewed coffee. “What time is it?”

“Almost ten.”

Kate looks shocked. “I always wake up at seven.”

Mildly, Lisa shrugs. “Your alarm clock is in the bedroom. You couldn’t hear it.”

“But—”

“Kate, look me in the eyes and tell me that sleeping in doesn’t feel fucking  _ good.” _

Kate is silent all the way until the pancakes are finished. She remains silent when Lisa plates two different stacks of three, and carries them over to the table. She remains silent until she’s finished one of the pancakes entirely. It’s deafening with Lisa’s wordlessly-foghorned  _ I told you so  _ blaring through the air.

“Thank you, Lisa,” Kate says. Begrudgingly.

Lisa stuffs a forkful of syrupy dough into her mouth and smiles.

“It’ll be  _ fun!”  _ Lisa insists for the dozenth time.

Kate still looks as reluctant as the first. “You know how I feel about parties, Lisa.”

“I know,” Lisa coaxes. “But this is  _ the  _ party! End of midterms! A due cause for celebration if ever there were any!”

“It’s only midterms,” Kate says. “We’re not done with the course yet.”

“But we’re halfway there!” Lisa lowers her voice. “I know you don’t—I know you don’t like parties. You don’t like the loud music, the crowds. I get it. Believe me, it even gets too chaotic for  _ me  _ sometimes. But we’re just celebrating, Kate. We don’t have to do anything extreme if you don’t want to. You don’t even have to drink. I just…”

“You just what?” Kate prompts, when Lisa trails off.

Lisa huffs. “You work so hard,” she says. “You aced all your courses. You deserve this. To have fun.” 

Kate’s expression softens. “Thank you, Lisa.”

“Don’t thank me,” Lisa says. “This isn’t a favour. I just want you to relax for once.” She hesitates. “If you really,  _ really  _ don’t want to go—”

Kate rolls her eyes. “I’ll go to the damn party, Lisa,” she says.

Lisa smiles.

The party isn’t a big one. It consists of mainly the people in Lisa’s study group, actually, so it’s more of a nerd-geek get-together with music and drinks than anything. And Lisa’s grateful for it when she sees the nervous set of Kate’s jaw gradually relax as the night goes on, when no cops arrive and no shots are taken and no one strips naked on the table and smears themselves all over with barbeque sauce. (Lisa’s never seen anything like it, but Shannon has some  _ wild  _ stories.)

It’s around midnight by the time they finally settle down after mingling in their separate groups, all colliding in the living room. Everyone has lazy smiles on their faces and empty Solo cups in their hands, the room reeking of relief and joy, limbs tangled all over on the couch where four people are collectively sprawled. 

“Jesus  _ fuck,”  _ one of them on the couch groans. “I still can’t believe it. That fucking Calc test, man, what the hell was that? Does he think we’re  _ Einstein?” _

A chorus of agreements erupt in the room. “Question  _ four,”  _ someone shouts, and the cries amplify tenfold.

Lisa’s sitting on the floor and leaning on the wall with Kate right next to her. She’s a little drunk; not enough to slur her speech but enough that she’s pleasantly relaxed. Kate, surprisingly, accepted the cup of beer that had been handed to her as she walked into the kitchen. She’s watching the room with a mild, undisturbed look on her face.

Lisa tilts her head to the side, towards Kate. “Hey, isn’t that the midterm you took last week?”

Kate takes a moment to answer. “Yeah.”

Lisa hums. “Did you solve question four?”

“Yeah.”

“Figures,” Lisa says, and turns to look at her. “You’re brilliant, you know that, right?”

So maybe she’s a little drunker than she thought.

And maybe Kate’s a little drunker than she thought, too, because instead of rolling her eyes, Kate smiles, fond in a way she rarely lets herself feel. It makes Lisa smile back, a little stupidly, because so far she’s only seen that smile a few times, and every time feels like a gift.

“So’re you,” Kate says.

“Oh, please.” It’s Lisa’s turn to roll her eyes.

“Really,” Kate says. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m awesome.”

“You are.” And Kate says this with so much conviction, so much  _ feeling,  _ that Lisa feels herself flush hot from head to toe. “I don’t usually like people, you know.”

Lisa grins. “Okay, Sherlock.”

“Shut up,” Kate says. “I mean it. I don’t usually like people. But I like you.”

Lisa is ready to retort with another purposefully-cheesy response, but something in Kate’s voice stops her. “Thanks, Kate,” she says instead, and she’s mumbling, now, fingering the edge of her beer cup like it’s fascinating. “I like you, too.”

Kate downs the rest of her beer and then falls asleep on Lisa’s shoulder.

Some people say Kate is scary. Some people say she’s kind of mean. Cold. Distant, sometimes. And to that Lisa says, Fuck off.

And then Kate starts to act strange.

Well, Lisa doesn’t really know that for sure. Maybe she’s delusional. Maybe she’s not. But she thinks she knows Kate. And the way Kate’s been acting these days, if it’s enough to make Lisa do a double-take, frown, and touch on those memories for longer than usual, it’s definitely something out of the norm. Probably. Maybe?

“Hey, does Kate seem weird lately?” Lisa asks Shannon, who’s in the same Chemistry class as both of them, one day when they’re at the library volunteering together.

Shannon raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean, weird?”

“I dunno,” Lisa says. “Like—strange.”

“Very elaborative,” Shannon says. Lisa rolls her eyes.

“She isn’t talking to me,” Lisa says. “Well, she is, but not as much as usual. She doesn’t look me in the eyes when we’re talking. She doesn’t—” Lisa pauses, searches for a more fitting word, gives up. “She doesn’t  _ touch  _ me anymore. Not like that! Just, like, a hand on the shoulder or a slap on the back. It’s so  _ weird,  _ Shannon. And every time I bring it up she just clams up and refuses to talk about it.”

“What do you think?” Helplessly, Lisa turns to Shannon.

Shannon, who is looking at Lisa like she’s stupid. 

“You’re looking at me like I’m stupid,” Lisa says. “What is it.”

“You really don’t know,” Shannon says.

“Know what? No, I don’t know. What don’t I know?”

Suddenly Shannon’s smiling. She’s smiling in that peculiar way someone smiles when they know something the other doesn’t. It prickles across Lisa’s neck like fire ants.

“Talk to Kate,” is all she says.

“I’ve been  _ trying,”  _ Lisa says.

“Well,” Shannon says, drawing it out like a lazy secret. “You said Kate doesn’t touch you anymore?” 

Lisa blushes. She knows exactly how that sounds. “Yeah.”

“Do you want her to?” Shannon’s blunt, cutting to the chase.

“I… Jesus, Shannon,” Lisa mutters. “What the hell do you want me to say?”

“I think you know,” Shannon says.

Lisa watches Shannon for a long time. “You know,” she says finally.

Shannon just smiles. She grips Lisa’s shoulder and squeezes, offering comfort. There’s nothing sharp in her eyes; all warm understanding and welcome.

And Lisa—Lisa feels something click inside her, releasing a bolt of pressure. She hugs Shannon so tightly her ribs creak.

So college  _ is _ different, after all.

When Lisa barrels into their dorm, Kate is at the desk again. She’s working on another goddamn paper. 

“Why the hell have you got so many papers?” Lisa demands.

Kate turns around and sees Lisa, her flushed cheeks and bright eyes, and looks away. “I told you,” she says. “Extra courses. Three years.”

Lisa huffs. “Right.”

“Right,” Kate echoes, her eyes wandering back to Lisa. They meet her gaze for a second before darting away, just like she’s been doing for the past few days. Except this time Lisa doesn’t feel the pinch of confusion. She can see the resistance, the question, the hinge in Kate’s expression, mirrored right back at her.

“Kate,” Lisa says, and gets stuck. She takes a breath and tries again. Thinks of Kate’s hair, smelling of citrus and how soft it would feel between her fingers. Thinks of the way Kate laughs with her whole body when she can’t help it, eyes closed and curved with joy. “Kate, please look at me.”

Kate raises her eyes, expression wary, and Lisa thinks like a left hook to her jaw that she’s beautiful.

“I’m going to try this,” Lisa says, voice dipping quiet, “and if it’s not good, tell me to stop right away.”

Kate flickers between a myriad of emotions, and Lisa glimpses hope like a flash of lightning in a summer storm. “Okay,” she says.

Lisa moves until she’s right in front of Kate, then she takes her hands in both of hers to pull her up from the chair. Kate goes willingly, docile.

Lisa licks her lips, and gently presses her mouth to Kate’s. 

Chaste and light, she kisses her. Just like that.

Nothing explodes. There are no fireworks. Kate sighs into Lisa’s mouth.

They pull apart, and Lisa is smiling. Kate stares back.

“Was that okay?” Lisa whispers.

Kate blinks for a moment. She lets go of one of Lisa’s hands to bring it up to Lisa’s cheek, where her hand stays.

“That was perfect,” Kate says.

“Good,” Lisa says, “Good.” And she leans forward to kiss her again, and again, and again.

Kate kisses back each time.


End file.
